BBQ knowledge: When the grill doctor comes with the syringe...

"Do you inject your pulled pork?" Hardly any question, when asked on relevant internet platforms, triggers such a controversial discussion. The effect is zero, say some. It adds real juiciness and flavor, say others. In the end, the question always remains: who is right?

The purpose of the injection
There are two reasons for injecting a piece of meat. Firstly, it gives it additional flavours on the inside. Secondly, it can stay juicier. Before you run into the nearest barbecue or household goods store, buy a syringe and hammer it filled with apple juice into a pork neck, you should first familiarise yourself with a few background facts about the subject. Otherwise, at least the first attempt will end in a kitchen clean-out and a lot of bad luck in the eye. Because if you use the wrong technique, all you really achieve is that the liquid squirts out of the meat in all possible and impossible places.

Syringes for taste
If you watch BBQ shows from time to time that focus on American BBQ competitions, you will notice that chicken, brisket and pork in particular are often sprayed. This makes sense, because you are dealing with relatively large pieces of meat. If you only rub the outside with a rub, you have a seasoned surface and an unseasoned core. With pulled pork, this is later put into perspective by the fact that the crust with the spices (the bark) is mixed with the meat from the inside. This usually gives you a balanced taste experience when you eat it. This can be quite different with brisket; here you have the pure beef taste in the core, but no special aromatic kick. You may also know this from Sunday roast: the crust is extremely tasty, the inside is pretty bland.

But be careful: If you mix a lot of garlic granules with apple juice, you will achieve one thing above all: you will no longer be able to taste the meat. So be cautious when mixing an injection. But something else is important: the liquid and its aromas should remain in the meat. That is why the chemical composition is important. An injection that works like a brine is ideal. To explain: a brine is a type of brine, but with a lower salt content than a classic brine. The salt ensures that the salt concentration in the cells is increased by osmosis. However, this is subtle, unlike the brine mentioned above.

And something else is important: the way you inject. There is no point in sticking the syringe vertically into a piece of meat and then pushing with all your strength. Liquid injected in this way will almost immediately find its way out. If you want the brine to work in the meat, you have to inject it along the muscle fiber, so to speak. To do this, you push the syringe deep into the meat at a fairly shallow angle, parallel to the fibers. Then you slowly pull it out. And during this movement, the plunger is simultaneously and slowly pressed. This way, the liquid is distributed properly and stays where it should stay. A tip for anyone who takes hygiene very seriously: injecting usually also introduces germs. If you have a problem with this, you should only use injections on meat that is then heated to a core temperature of at least 70 °C.

The right seasoning
Making a spice injection is not rocket science. But as already mentioned, less is more. To start with, you can just use salt. About two percent of the weight of the meat. Add just enough water to dissolve it completely. In principle, the result is already a liquid that can be injected. You can then gradually experiment with other spices.

If you want to make things a little easier, you can use broth. It's definitely worth trying out less obvious combinations, like chicken broth with pork or beef. The only important thing is that the liquid, whether brine or broth, is poured through a relatively fine sieve before injecting. Pieces that are too big - herbs, spices, vegetables - will clog the needle.

More fat in the meat
What works in cosmetics also works for roasts. But for a different reason. It's about injecting fat. This is useful if the meat is otherwise in danger of becoming too dry. This is not a problem with well-marbled meat, but it is with lean pieces. Adding fat can be an option, especially for poultry; chicken is often prepared this way at BBQ contests. However, compared to brine, fat is much more difficult to process. Butter, lard or beef fat are all possible options. But it must always be added warm and as liquid as possible. Then it can solidify again; after that, when grilling, it behaves in a similar way to intramuscular fat. At least in the best case, because the animal's own fat in the form of marbling is deposited relatively evenly in the muscles. It takes a lot of practice to get this evenness when injecting. If you don't manage this, you end up with very fatty and less fatty areas, which is not necessarily desirable. Unlike brine, fat is unable to penetrate muscle or connective tissue due to the size of its molecules; it therefore remains more or less where it was injected.

Conclusion:
In certain cases, injections are a way of getting more flavor and a little more juiciness in a piece of meat. They are really useful for large pieces or in the form of fat in chicken etc. However, practice shows that the result often falls short of expectations. In many blind tastings, the test eaters could not detect any real difference between injected and uninjected meat, especially with pulled pork. And otherwise, an injection is more like "aroma tuning" than it creates a previously unimagined explosion of flavor. At least that is the case if you want to taste something of the meat.

Author: Markus Mizgalski